St. Johnsbury Manufacturer's Expansion Nears Completion

This
month Weidmann Electrical Technology will complete work on a $40 million
expansion of its manufacturing plant in St. Johnsbury. The
company has been one of the areas largest employers for decades.

Weidmann
uses an ancient process to make something very much part of modern life.

"The Chinese were the first to make paper, and
it's really a modern version of that," Weidmann vice-president John Goodrich explains
as he leads a tour of the company's sprawling plant.

What
goes into the process is wood pulp. What
comes out is a specialized paper product used by Weidmann to manufacture the
insulation inside the electric transformers that hang on power poles and sit in
substations everywhere.

Weidmann's
parent company is a family owned Swiss firm with manufacturing plants around
the world. The St. Johnsbury plant is
company's largest facility in the Americas. Weidmann broke ground here more than 40 years ago.

"I
would say we're a real success story for especially this area of Vermont,"Goodrich says.

Goodrich
explains that while there's been some ebb and flow, Weidmann has consistently
provided the area with hundreds of good paying jobs.

More
than 260 people currently work at the plant, with an average salary of $52,000
a year.

But
Goodrich says the future of the plant was in question a number of years ago
when the company was weighing whether or not to invest more money in it.

"We
were actually at the stage where we needed to either upgrade our technology or
we knew we would not continue in this location," he says.

And
Goodrich says there were some compelling reasons why the company should
consider taking its manufacturing elsewhere - to another country where it might
be less expensive to operate.

He
says one key consideration is the relatively high U.S. corporate tax rate, adding, "If you look at federal
tax rates for businesses like ours, once you get over the minimums, you're
paying over 35% on the federal. Our board said, ‘why should we do anything here'?"

Ultimately,
Weidmann decided to invest $40 million to upgrade the St. Johnsbury
plant.

Goodrich
credits former Governor Jim Douglas, legislators and local economic development
officials for extending tax breaks to the company that made the investment
feasible.

Weidmann's
federal tax liability was reduced through a program called the New Markets Tax
Credit, administered by Housing Vermont.
It's designed to bring in investments and retain jobs.

Goodrich says without that help, one of St.
Johnsbury's largest employers would have eventually moved its jobs somewhere
else.

"This
facility would have dwindled," he says. "We would have been looking at anybody
interested in buying."